Alien abduction

While the term "alien abduction" did not achieve widespread attention until the 1960s, modern speculation about some older stories interpreted them as possible cases. UFO researcher Jerome Clark dubbed them "paleo-abductions".[14]

• In the November 27, 1896, edition of the Stockton, California Daily Mail, Colonel H. G. Shaw claimed he and a friend were harassed by three tall, slender humanoids whose bodies were covered with a fine, downy hair who tried to kidnap the pair.[14]
• In the October 1953 issue of Man to Man Magazine an article by Leroy Thorpe titled "Are the Flying Saucers Kidnapping Humans?" asks the question "Are an unlucky few of us, and perhaps not so few at that, being captured with the same ease as we would net butterflies, perhaps for zoological specimens, perhaps for vivisection or some other horrible death designed to reveal to our interplanetary invaders what makes us tick?" [15]
• Rogerson writes that the 1955 publication of Harold T. Wilkins's Flying Saucers Uncensored declared that Karl Hunrath and Wilbur Wilkinson, who had claimed they were contacted by aliens, had disappeared under mysterious circumstances; Wilkins reported speculation that the duo were the victims of "alleged abduction by flying saucers".[16]

An early alien abduction claim occurred in the mid-1950s with the Brazilian Antônio Villas Boas case, which did not receive much attention until several years later.

Widespread publicity was generated by the Betty and Barney Hill abduction case of 1961, culminating in a made-for-television film broadcast in 1975 (starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons) dramatizing the events. The Hill incident was probably the prototypical abduction case and was perhaps the first in which the claimant described beings that later became widely known as the Greys and in which the beings were said to explicitly identify an extraterrestrial origin.

Though these two cases are sometimes viewed as the earliest abductions, skeptic Peter Rogerson[17] notes they were only the first "canonical" abduction cases, establishing a template that later abductees and researchers would refine but rarely deviate from. Additionally, Rogerson notes purported abductions were cited contemporaneously at least as early as 1954, and that "the growth of the abduction stories is a far more tangled affair than the 'entirely unpredisposed' official history would have us believe." (The phrase "entirely predisposed" appeared in folklorist Thomas E. Allard's study of alien abduction; he argued that alien abductions as reported in the 1970s and 1980s had little precedent in folklore or fiction.)

R. Leo Sprinkle, a University of Wyoming psychologist, became interested in the abduction phenomenon in the 1960s. Sprinkle became convinced of the phenomenon's actuality, and was perhaps the first to suggest a link between abductions and cattle mutilation. Eventually, Sprinkle came to believe that he had been abducted by aliens in his youth; he was forced from his job in 1989.[18]

Budd Hopkins had been interested in UFOs for some years. In the 1970s he became interested in abduction reports, and began using hypnosis to extract more details of dimly remembered events. Hopkins soon became a figurehead of the growing abductee subculture.[19]

The 1980s brought a major degree of mainstream attention to the subject. Works by Hopkins, novelist Whitley Strieber, historian David M. Jacobs and psychiatrist John E. Mack presented alien abduction as a plausible experience.[19] Also of note in the 1980s was the publication of folklorist Thomas E. Bullard's comparative analysis of nearly 300 alleged abductees.

With Hopkins, Jacobs and Mack, accounts of alien abduction became a prominent aspect of ufology. There had been earlier abduction reports (the Hills being the best known), but they were believed to be few and far between, and saw rather little attention from ufology (and even less attention from mainstream professionals or academics). Jacobs and Hopkins argued that alien abduction was far more common than earlier suspected; they estimate that tens of thousands (or more) North Americans had been taken by unexplained beings.[19]

Furthermore, Jacobs and Hopkins argued that there was an elaborate process underway in which aliens were attempting to create human–alien hybrids, the most advanced stage of which in the "human hybridization program" are known as hubrids,[20] though the motives for this effort were unknown. There had been anecdotal reports of phantom pregnancy related to UFO encounters at least as early as the 1960s, but Budd Hopkins and especially David M. Jacobs were instrumental in popularizing the idea of widespread, systematic interbreeding efforts on the part of the alien intruders.

The descriptions of alien encounters as researched and presented by Hopkins, Jacobs and Mack were similar, with slight differences in each researcher's emphasis; the process of selective citation of abductee interviews that supported these variations was sometimes criticized – though abductees who presented their own accounts directly, such as Whitley Strieber, fared no better.

The involvement of Jacobs and Mack marked something of a sea change in the abduction studies. Their efforts were controversial (both men saw some degree of damage to their professional reputations), but to other observers, Jacobs and Mack brought a degree of respectability to the subject.

According to Boston Globe writer Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, "Abduction and contact stories aren’t quite the fodder for daytime talk show and New York Times bestsellers they were a few decades ago...Today, credulous stories of alien visitation rarely crack the mainstream media, however much they thrive on niche TV channels and Internet forums". Skeptic Michael Shermer noted that "the camera-phone age is increasing the burden of evidence on experiencers".[9]

Matheson writes that "if Jacobs's credentials were impressive," then those of Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack might seem "impeccable" in comparison.[21] Mack was a well known, highly esteemed psychiatrist, author of over 150 scientific articles and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of T. E. Lawrence. Mack became interested in the phenomenon in the late 1980s, interviewing over 800 people, and eventually writing two books on the subject.

Mack devoted a substantial amount of time to investigating such cases and eventually concluded that the only phenomenon in psychiatry that adequately explained the patients' symptoms in several of the most compelling cases was posttraumatic stress disorder.[22] As he noted at the time, this would imply that the patient genuinely believed that the remembered frightening incident had really occurred – the position Mack came to endorse.[23]

In June 1992, Mack and the physicist David E. Pritchard organized a five-day conference at MIT to discuss and debate the abduction phenomenon.[24] The conference attracted a wide range of professionals, representing a variety of perspectives.

Writer C. D. B. Bryan attended the conference, initially intending to gather information for a short humorous article for The New Yorker. While attending the conference, however, Bryan's view of the subject changed, and he wrote a serious, open-minded book on the phenomenon, additionally interviewing many abductees, skeptics, and proponents.

Mack's study of numerous cases led him to the conclusion that while investigators should remain open to the possibility of experiences occurring, stories should not be considered to involve actual physical entities and should be treated like subjective witness reports of personal experience. The purported beings would remain outside of physical reality and reports may be influenced by factors like expectations, memory reliability and interviewer suggestions. He also reports similarities to other experiences like OOBE.[25] According to Lance Rivers, he is convinced in the reality of the phenomenon but gives it to interaction with a spiritual plane. While Mack acknowledges that this leads to problematic speculation on the nature of the beings and their motivations, he concludes that materialist science is inadequate to inquire in those areas.[26]

In a study investigating the motivations of the alleged abductors, Jenny Randles found that in each of the 4 cases out of 50 total where the experiencer was over 40 years of age, they were rejected by the aliens for "what they (the experiencers) usually inferred to be a medical reason."[27] Randles concludes "[T]he abduction is essentially a young person's experience."[27] Given the reproductive focus of the alleged abductions it is not surprising that one man reported being rejected because he had undergone a vasectomy.[28] It could also be partially because people over the age of 40 are less likely to have "hormonic" or reproductive activity going on.

Although abduction and other UFO-related reports are usually made by adults, sometimes young children report similar experiences.[29] These child-reports often feature very specific details in common with reports of abduction made by adults, including the circumstances, narrative, entities and aftermaths of the alleged occurrences.[29] Often these young abductees have family members who have reported having abduction experiences.[29] Family involvement in the military, or a residence near a military base is also common among child abduction claimants.[29]

As a category, some studies show that abductees have psychological characteristics that render their testimony suspect, while others show that "as a group, abduction experients are not different from the general population in term of psychopathology prevalence".[3][11] Elizabeth Slater conducted a blind study of nine abduction claimants and found them to be prone to "mildly paranoid thinking," nightmares and having a weak sexual identity,[3] while Richard McNally of Harvard Medical School concluded in a similar study of 10 abductees that "none of them was suffering from any sort of psychiatric illness."[30]

Political scientist Michael Barkun, without taking a position on if UFOs and aliens are real, highlighted links between radical politics and conspiracy theories involving UFOs, alien visitation, environmental pollution, hidden groups, government and world takeover.[31] He observed the rise of a form of eclectic and apocalyptic millenarism which he termed "improvisional millenarism".[32] UFO and abduction stories can often be part of stigmatized or suppressed knowledge narratives, where alleged orthodoxy is claimed to be maintained in error for nefarious purposes and to keep society in ignorance.[33] UFO and alien related conspiracy theories emerged in far-right politics from the 1980s onwards.[34]

According to Barkun, in popular culture, TV shows like The X-Files motion picture not only included aliens as part of coverup conspiracies, with militias and black helicopters, but also featured demonization of FEMA, a common target of conspiracy theorists and millenarian scenarios.[35] One conspiracy theory alleges that FEMA plans to suddenly incarcerate "patriots" in concentration camps during a disaster.[36] Political scientist Jodi Dean noted that the stigma of alien abduction stories is seductive to dismiss "consensus reality" in favor of deviant alternative realities.[37]

Self-described abduction victims often join self-help communities of victims and may resort to questionable regression therapy, similarly to other self-reported victims of child sexual abuse or satanic ritual abuse. Some espouse conspiracy theories of sophisticated technological mind control, including the use of implants, to force them to serve an alleged New World Order, or for the purposes of the antichrist, considering important to warn the world of such imminent danger.[38]

Abduction claimants report unusual feelings preceding the onset of an abduction experience.[42] These feelings manifest as a compulsive desire to be at a certain place at a certain time or as expectations that something "familiar yet unknown," will soon occur.[42] Abductees also report feeling severe, undirected anxiety at this point even though nothing unusual has actually occurred yet.[42] This period of foreboding can last for up to several days before the abduction actually takes place or be completely absent.[42]

Eventually, the experiencer will undergo an apparent "shift" into an altered state of consciousness.[42] British abduction researchers have called this change in consciousness "the Oz Factor." External sounds cease to have any significance to the experiencer and fall out of perception.[42] They report feeling introspective and unusually calm.[42] This stage marks a transition from normal activity to a state of "limited self-willed mobility."[42] As consciousness shifts one or more lights are alleged to appear, occasionally accompanied by a strange mist.[42] The source and nature of the lights differ by report; sometimes the light emanates from a source outside the house (presumably the abductors' UFO), sometimes the lights are in the bedroom with the experiencer and transform into alien figures.[42]

As the alleged abduction proceeds, claimants say they will walk or be levitated into an alien craft, in the latter case often through solid objects such as walls, ceilings or a closed window.[42] Alternatively, they may experience rising through a tunnel or along a beam of light, with or without the abductors accompanying them, into the awaiting craft.[42]

The examination phase of the so-called "abduction narrative" is characterized by the performance of medical procedures and examinations by apparently alien beings against or irrespective of the will of the experiencer. Such procedures often focus on sex and reproductive biology. However, the literature holds reports of a wide variety of procedures allegedly performed by the beings. The entity that appears to be in charge of the operation is often taller than the others involved and is sometimes described as appearing to be of a different species.[5][43]

Miller notes different areas of emphasis between human medicine and what is reported as being practiced by the abductors.[5] This could result from a difference in the purpose of the examination – routine diagnosis and/or treatment versus scientific examination of an unfamiliar species, or it could be due to a different level of technology that renders certain kinds of manual procedures unnecessary. The abductors' areas of interest appear to be the cranium, nervous system, skin, reproductive system, and to a lesser degree, the joints.[5] Systems given less attention than a human doctor would, or omitted entirely include cardiovascular system, the respiratory system below the pharynx and the lymphatic system.[5] The abductors also appear to ignore the upper region of the abdomen in favor of the lower one.[5] The abductors do not appear to wear gloves during the "examination."[5] Other constants of terrestrial medicine like pills and tablets are missing from abduction narratives although sometimes abductees are asked to drink liquids.[5] Injections also seem to be rare and IVs are almost completely absent.[5] Miller says he's never heard an abductee claim to have a tongue depressor used on them.[5]

After the so-called medical exam, the alleged abductees often report other procedures being performed with the entities.[41] Common among these post-examination procedures are what abduction researchers refer to as imaging, envisioning, staging, and testing.[41]

"Imaging" procedures consist of an abductee being made to view screens displaying images and scenes that appear to be specially chosen with the intent to provoke certain emotional responses in the abductee.[41] "Envisioning" is a similar procedure, with the primary difference being that the images being viewed, rather than being on a screen, actually seem to be projected into the experiencer's mind.[41] "Staging" procedures have the abductee playing a more active role, according to reports containing this element.[41] It shares vivid hallucination-like mental visualization with the envisioning procedures, but during staging the abductee interacts with the illusionary scenario like a role player or an actor.[41]

"Testing" marks something of a departure from the above procedures in that it lacks the emotional analysis feature.[41] During testing the experiencer is placed in front of a complicated electronic device and is instructed to operate it.[41] The experiencer is often confused, saying that they do not know how to operate it.[41] However, when they actually set about performing the task, the abductee will find that they do, in fact, know how to operate the machine.[41]

Abductees of all ages and genders sometimes report being subjected to a "child presentation."[41] As its name implies, the child presentation involves the abduction claimant being shown a "child."[41] Often the children appear to be neither human, nor the same species as the abductors.[41] Instead, the child will almost always share characteristics of both species.[41] These children are labeled by experiencers as hybrids between humans and their abductors, usually Greys.

Unlike Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs, folklorist Thomas E. Bullard could not identify a child presentation phase in the abduction narrative, even after undertaking a study of 300 abduction reports.[28] Bullard says that the child presentation "seems to be an innovation in the story"[28] and that "no clear antecedents" to descriptions of the child presentation phase exist before its popularization by Hopkins and Jacobs.[28]

Bullard also studied the 300 reports of alien abduction in an attempt to observe the less prominent aspects of the claims.[6] He notes the emergence of four general categories of events that recur regularly, although not as frequently as stereotypical happenings like the medical examination. These four types of events are:[6]

1. The conference
2. The tour
3. The journey
4. Theophany

Chronologically within abduction reports, these rarer episodes tend to happen in the order listed, between the medical examination and the return.[6]

After allegedly displaying cold callous disregard towards the abduction experiencers, sometimes the entities will change drastically in behavior once the initial medical exam is completed.[6] They become more relaxed and hospitable towards their captive and lead him or her away from the site of the examination.[6] The entities then hold a conference with the experiencer, wherein they discuss things relevant to the abduction phenomenon.[6] Bullard notes five general categories of discussion that occur during the conference "phase" of reported abduction narratives: An interrogation session, explanatory segment, task assignment, warnings, and prophecies.[6]

Tours of the abductors' craft are a rare but recurring feature of the abduction narrative.[6] The tour seems to be given by the alleged abductors as a courtesy in response to the harshness and physical rigors of the forced medical examination.[6] Sometimes the abductees report traveling on a "journey" to orbit around Earth or to what appear to be other planets.[6] Some abductees find that the experience is terrifying, particularly if the aliens are of a more fearsome species, or if the abductee was subjected to extensive probing and medical testing.

Eventually, the abductors will return the abductees, usually to exactly the same location and circumstances they were in before being taken.[44] Usually, explicit memories of the abduction experience will not be present, and the abductee will only realize they have experienced "missing time" upon checking a timepiece.[44]

Sometimes the alleged abductors appear to make mistakes when returning their captives.[44] Famed UFO researcher Budd Hopkins has joked about "the cosmic application of Murphy's Law" in response to this observation.[44] Hopkins has estimated that these "errors" accompany 4–5 percent of abduction reports.[44] One type of common apparent mistake made by the abductors is failing to return the experiencer to the same spot that they were taken from initially.[44] This can be as simple as a different room in the same house, or abductees can even find themselves outside and all the doors of the house are locked from the inside.[44] Another common (and amusing) error is putting the abductee's clothes (e.g. pajamas) on backwards.

Physician and abduction researcher John G. Miller sees significance in the reason a person would come to see themselves as being a victim of the abduction phenomenon.[45] He terms the insight or development leading to this shift in identity from non-abductee to abductee the "realization event."[45] The realization event is often a single, memorable experience, but Miller reports that not all abductees experience it as a distinct episode.[45] Either way, the realization event can be thought of as the "clinical horizon" of the abduction experience.[45]

Support groups for people who believed they were abducted began appearing in the mid-1980s. These groups appear throughout the United States, Canada and Australia.[49]

Alleged abductees seek out hypnotherapists to try to resolve issues such as missing time or unexplained physical symptoms such as muscle pain or headaches. This usually involves two phases, an information gathering stage, in which the hypnotherapist asks about unexplained illnesses or unusual phenomena during the patients lives (caused by or distortions of the alleged abduction), followed by hypnosis and guided imagery to facilitate recall. The information gathering enhances the likelihood that the events discussed will be incorporated into later abduction "memories".[52] Seven steps are hypothesized to lead to the development of false memories:[51]

1. A person is predisposed to accept the idea that certain puzzling or inexplicable experiences might be telltale signs of UFO abduction.
2. The person seeks out a therapist, whom he or she views as an authority and who is, at the very least, receptive to this explanation and has some prior familiarity with UFO abduction reports.
3. Alternatively, the therapist frames the puzzling experiences in terms of an abduction narrative.
4. Alternative explanations of the experiences are not explored.
5. There is increasing commitment to the abduction explanation and increasing anxiety reduction associated with ambiguity reduction.
6. The therapist legitimates or ratifies the abductee's experience, which constitutes additional positive reinforcement.
7. The client adopts the role of the "victim" or abductee, which becomes integrated into the psychotherapy and the client's view of self.

Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack counters this argument, noting "It might be useful to restate that a large proportion of the material relating to abductions is recalled without the use of an altered state of consciousness, and that many abduction reporters appear to relive powerful experiences after only the most minimal relaxation exercise, hardly justifying the word hypnosis at all. The relaxation exercise is useful to relieve the experiencer's need to attend to the social demands and other stimuli of face-to-face conversation, and to relieve the energies involved in repressing memories and emotion."[53]

It has been argued that if actual "flesh and blood" aliens are abducting humans, there should be some hard evidence that this is occurring.[3] Proponents of the physical reality of the abduction experience have suggested ways that could conceivably confirm abduction reports.

One procedure reported occurring during the alleged exam phase of the experience is the insertion of a long needle-like contraption into a woman's navel.[5] Some have speculated that this could be a form of laparoscopy.[5] If this is true, after the abduction there should be free gas in the female's abdomen, which could be seen on an x-ray.[5] The presence of free gas would be extremely abnormal and would help substantiate the claim of some sort of procedure being done to her.[5]